When I Can't See You
by Fireglass
Summary: -I will always be here if you need me, Sam. I will always answer your prayers.-Castiel visits Sam after his disastrous talk with Dean in Bobby's living room, and a compassionate Sam gives him some brotherly advice. Tag to 6x20. No pairings.


Sam came awake without really knowing what had woken him.

He was lying in the guest bed at Bobby's house, and for a minute he was still, watching the reflection of thin tree branches scuttling along the window across the room; giving Dean his space downstairs, space to think and rage and drown himself in whiskey, alone. It wasn't smart, and Sam knew it, because drinking was no way to deal with the loss of a friend, not really. But Dean was being selfish; Sam knew that, too. He was acting as though he was the only one affected by what had happened that night.

Like he was the only one with something to lose.

"Hello. Sam."

Sam hefted up onto one elbow and turned over, quickly.

Castiel was sitting on the foot of the bed. By all intents and purposes he seemed contained, but turned toward Sam, clasped hands in his lap. There was a guard in his eyes, turning bright blue to smoky gray.

"Hey." Sam said groggily, and warily. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to…apologize." Castiel said, quietly, studying his hands. His knuckles chapped, and he smelled like sulfur. Sam didn't have to ask; didn't even want to. "And to try to explain myself."

"What could you possibly say to make any of this all right, Castiel?" Sam asked, but he was surprised by the softness of his own voice. Maybe during the drive back to Bobby's, he'd lost the fight somewhere on the blacktop behind them. While Dean swore and punched the steering wheel and Bobby was deathly silent in the passenger seat and Sam was in the backseat, rubbing small circles on his chest in the place where his soul had penetrated through soulless flesh.

Castiel didn't seem to miss the motion as Sam touched that place again, and his eyes grew soft, and sadder. "Of course. Of course, there is no excuse for how I betrayed you. How I lied to you all those months when I said I knew nothing of who had pulled you from Hell. But, Sam," and Castiel shifted closer, earnest, more like the man Sam had met years ago than the angel they'd trapped in a bracelet of fire on a dusty floor. "I did it _for you_. I'm doing _all of this_ to protect you. To keep you and Dean and Bobby _safe_."

"I know." Sam sat up, his back to the headboard. "I know, Cass. That's what makes it wrong."

Castiel blinked in evident confusion. "I don't understand."

"What you're doing for us? What you've _done _for us, what you _plan _to do?" Sam rubbed his arm in an unconscious gesture of unease. "It's a slippery slope, Cass."

Castiel's expression shifted from confusion to despair, and he looked away. "You sound like your brother."

"Maybe we're right." Sam smoothed his hand over the bedspread, just to give himself time to think. "You're in with Crowley."

"Yes. No matter how many times you reiterate that, it will not be any less true."

"I'm not trying to lay a guilt trip on you." Sam assured him. "But I want to give you some advice. As someone who considers you a friend."

Castiel's gaze lifted, so full of shock that Sam felt a tingle of sadness in his chest "I would like that, Sam. Very much."

"Okay, look: partnering with demons. Trusting them." Sam said, intently. "I've been down that road, Cass. I know where it leads. And it never ends the way you want it to. It _always _ends bloody and angry and sad. Trust me."

"Crowley is only a means to an end."

"So was Ruby. And look how that turned out."

Castiel averted his gaze. "It's not like that. I'm not engaging in intercourse with Crowley, despite how—colorfully—Dean phrases our relationship. It is a partnership of convenience, nothing more. The moment I no longer need his services—"

"You'll—what? Kill him?" The words emerged more bitingly than Sam had intended, and Castiel refused to meet his eyes. "Yeah. That was my plan with Ruby, too. Use her to get to Lilith, and then send her back to Hell." Sam shook his head. "And we did it. Cass, we sent her back. But in the meantime, Lucifer got free."

"Then this is about the souls. You want to protect them."

"I want to protect _you_." Sam insisted. "The demon blood—what was in me, it didn't just end with Lucifer. I was in the panic room, detoxing—I almost killed Dean. A part of me _wanted _to. It messed with my head so bad, I couldn't see straight for weeks. And if the souls do that to you?" Sam paused, and waited, but Castiel made no move to acknowledge him. "And I can't watch a friend go through that—I can't." Sam's voice trailed low, fist curling around the sheets bunched and bundled against his hip. "You can't ask me to sit by and watch you kill yourself that way, Cass."

"Sam." Castiel reached over, and laid a hand on Sam's arm. "You have been a—a true friend to me. The first human friend I ever had."

Sam winced away from him, with surprise. "I thought—you and Dean—"

"It's true, Dean and I have a more—intricate friendship." Castiel admitted. "Much of my human tendencies, I've learned from him. We've spent much more time together. But you were the first human—the first creature, if truth be told—to show any real interest in who I was."

"That sounds—vaguely creepy." Sam said, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Castiel almost smiled. "The truth is, Sam, I pulled you from Hell because I cared for you. I always have, though it's been—difficult. With the demon blood inside of you, and what you were destined to become, I suppose you could say I was wary of befriending you. I thought I knew how that story would, inevitably, end. And I truly am sorry…that I did not see you as an individual from the beginning, the way you saw me. Now I fear we may never have a chance to become brothers the way Dean once was to me."

"Cass, we were a family." Sam said, simply. "I would've died for you. I don't care if you share some—profound bond with Dean or not. You were my brother, too."

"I know." Castiel sat back. "You don't know how much it pains me to have done all of this. To have broken your trust."

"Yeah. Well, you did." Sam blew out a deep breath. "Guess it's a little too late for all of us, huh?"

"I wish I could stop what's been set into motion. But it's not possible."

"Yes. It is." Sam raised his eyes to the angel's, full of pleading. "Cass. It _is_."

"Not for me, Sam. Not now."

Sam's breath straggled. "Then you know what we'll have to do. To stop you."

Castiel faintly nodded. "I am aware."

Sam nodded, as well, much more firmly, with a conviction he didn't feel in his heart. "Then why'd you come here?"

"To apologize. And to have one last chance to see you like this. As a friend, rather than an enemy."

"You really think it'll come down to that?"

"We are all stubborn creatures at heart."

Sam laughed, a humorless, unhappy sound in the darkness. "You got that right."

Castiel stood. "I will always be here if you need me, Sam. I will always answer your prayers."

"Even when I can't see you?" Sam asked, almost teasing, and almost smiling.

"Yes. Even when I'm hidden from your eyes."

"Wish you didn't have to do this, Cass." Sam said, and he felt like it was the warmest, bluntest truth he'd spoken in a very long time.

Castiel looked at him, seeming to memorize his face. "I wish that, too." He stepped away. "Goodbye, Sam."

Five minutes later, Sam went downstairs to drink with his brother.


End file.
